Dota 2

With the end of The International, the prohibition for roster changes of the participating teams was lifted which shook up the whole scene. A lot of the TI2 teams, as well as some of those which didn't participate in the tournament, have suffered many changes in just two weeks. Some of the rumors circulating within the community have turned out to be true, others - false, and some teams even managed to surprise everyone.

A few days ago almost nothing was known as only few organizations had actually confirmed changes in their teams. With the announcement of the third season of the Star Series, starladder.tv and joinDota have revealed a lot of line-up reshuffles - some of them were confirmed afterwards by the organizatons or the players, but others are still considered just rumors.

In the next few lines I'm going to summarize every roster change that has occured in the days after The International until now.

After losing its sponsor, the team goes back to its previous name - Natural 9 and parts ways with two of its players.

Absolute Legends entered the Dota 2 scene after acquiring a young and very talanted Australian team, called Natural 9 back in January. They were dominating the scene, introducing some new strategies and were considered as favourites even against titans such as Na`Vi. However, they suffered a drop in their form and couldn't recover from it. This resulted in a disappointing performance in the two most important LAN events of the year - Dreamhack Summer 2012 and The International. Having not won any major online tournaments as well, the organization decided to release the team. The Australians decided to go back to their previous name - Natural 9 - and parted ways with two of their players - Trong 'Snoopy' Truong and Scott 'bLeek' Jensen left and will be replaced by only one player - Anh 'GET-LOST' Tran to complete the 5-man roster.

A new Swedish team consisting of some of the former Keita players as well as some new interesting personalities.

BVM is a newly formed team whose first appearance will be in the Star Series season 3. Captain Henry 'henrydickenson' Dickenson will be leading a six-man team with 5 Swedes, some of whom were part of the already disbanded Keita Gaming. Debut as a pro-player will be making a known to the community face - Johan 'Weppas' Westberg, who is also working for the GD Studio and is sometimes seen to co-comentate tournament matches.

After a disappointing performance at TI2, the management of the organization decided to part ways with the team led by ArtStyle and acquired a new Bulgarian team.

Darer Entertainment have decided to undertake a whole new direction by releasing their previous Dota 2 squad consisting of CIS superstars such as Ivan 'ArtStyle' Antonov and Sergey 'God' Bragin. Since they couldn't live up to the expectations and underperformed at TI2, the management decided that it's time to find new challenges with a new team. Darer has replaced the team with a new and unknown to the scene Bulgarian squad who will have to prove that they have what it takes to be in the pro-scene.

The Chinese organization parts ways with PCT due to poor form and troubles with motivation.

EHOME will no longer count on Zhang 'Perfect_CaT' Miaolong who has left the team. According to manager Wen Yi '71' Tang, the main reasons were his mediocre performance as well as some issues with his motivation. EHOME is definitely going to find a replacement, but for now the team wants to solve some strategical issues (such as player roles).

The Finnish player returns to his former organization, but for the first time playing for Fnatic's European Dota 2 division.

Fnatic EU have got a lot of history with Kalle 'Trixi' Saarinen during the big Heroes Of Newerth days. The Finn was part of the highly successful HoN Fnatic team, but have left in order to try his luck at Dota 2. With the retirement of Jascha 'NoVa' Markuse, Trixi has been invited to join Fnatic once again and compete for their Dota 2 division. Fnatic's LAN debut will be at Dreamhack Valencia 2012 in just a few weeks.

Making only one change to their squad, the all-Swedish team stays together and will be known as Skånes Elit until they find a new sponsor.

Infused dropped their Dota 2 squad since there have been disagreements between the organizaton and the players. The roster will remain almost the same as they will only replace Jerry 'EGM' Lundkvist with Alexander 'PiNoY' Pettersson, who stood-in during Dreamhack Summer 2012. The team will be known as Skånes Elit in the future.

Shortly after M5 released their previous team, they have announced a new squad consisting of some familiar players.

Moscow Five dropped their Dota 2 team recently which was led by one of the most controversial personalities in the scene - Vladamir 'PGG' Anosov due to various reasons such as poor performance and lack of discipline. Now the Russian organization has announced that it has acquired a new squad consisting of four of zNation 's players as well as Andrew 'Dread' Golubev to complete the 5-man roster. The new M5 have already made their debut in the Star Series season 3, grabbing 2 wins out of 2 matches.

There's an old saying in the Eastern-European culture. It states: "PGG + 4" and it comes back when it's needed.

The Retry is a known name within the pro scene. Every time the Russian captain Vladamir 'PGG' Anosov gathers few talented players ready to upset the big names, The Retry is reborn. Shortly after PGG's departure from Moscow Five after The International, he formed a new team consisting of some unknown but potentially good players. He has done it successfully before, so it wouldn't be a surprise if PGG leads his new teammates to new highs.

The Russian organization announces two new teams, one of them being an all-ladies Dota 2 squad.

Virtus.Pro have confirmed in the early days of September that they have formed a new Dota 2 female team consisting of known to the Russian scene ladies. Just a few days ago, it was also confirmed that the male team is also set to a comeback, keeping only Yaroslav 'NS' Kuznetsov and Alex 'Santa' Koltan from the previous roster. They will be joined by Sergey 'KSi' Kuzin who is also going to be the new captain, as well as by two other players.

The Singaporean team loses its superstar hyhy, who has recently retired.

Team Zenith has seen brighter days. Right now the situation with the SEA team is unclear, as there are a lot of questions to be answered. In a recent statement, Zenith's captain Han Yong 'hyhy' Benedict Lim, has announced his retirement from professional gaming, leaving the captain slot to Daryl Koh 'IceIceIce' Pei Xiang. Although the squad grabbed the prestigious 5th/6th place at TI2, the players as well as the fans had the feeling that the Singaporean team could do more and compete for a top-3 place. Apart from hyhy's leaving, it is also unclear whether former SK Gaming superstar Jonathan 'Loda' Berg is going to continue playing with Zenith and is that going to be possible if he returns back to Sweden.